The gas station, which is central to the show, existed. Here's the wild true story.

Ryan Murphy's new Netflix drama Hollywood is a dream for those obsessed with the Golden Era of Tinseltown. It's sure to set you on a Googling frenzy, searching for details of the tortured lives of stars like Rock Hudson, Anna May Wong, and Hattie McDaniel.

But what may be one of the most intriguing pieces of history the show unearths, is an unassuming gas station that served as an underground hookup spot. And we're introduced to it in the very first episode when a naive, broke Jack (David Corenswet) is recruited by Ernie (Dylan McDermott) to work as a station attendant who also doubles as an escort for the Hollywood elite. And as we were surprised to find out, this storyline isn't some fictional scenario cooked up by Murphy.

Hollywood's Ernie is inspired by a very real man named Scotty Bowers, who died at the age of 96 in October 2019. And yes, he did in fact create a network of gas station sex workers in the 1940s.

“He was the gentleman fixer for generations of people in Hollywood who were forced by the morals clauses in studio contracts to live double lives," Tyrnauer told The New York Times, "and to hide their true identities in order to conform to what Gore Vidal, a close friend of Scotty’s, called ‘the heterosexual dictatorship.’”

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In order to prepare for the role of Bowers, McDermott turned to the doc. He tells OprahMag.com, "The documentary really helped me in terms of Scotty's internal world, so I used some of that. And I used the muse of Clark Gable. So it was kind of, put it all in a big soup, and then Ernie comes out."

McDermott adds: "I know if Scottie were alive, he would absolutely love this show. I think he would just marvel at it and get a good laugh."

Okay, so is the Hollywood gas station real, too?

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If you can believe it—and take Bowers' word for it—yes. After he served in the Marine Corps during World War II, at 23 years old Bowers moved to Los Angeles and quickly found a job as an attendant at the Richfield Oil gas station in 1946. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the station—which is now a fire station—was located at the corner of Van Ness Avenue at 5777 Hollywood Blvd. It was there where he said he met Oscar-winning actor Walter Pidgeon while pumping his gas. Pidgeon invited him to his home, and that was the beginning of a brief affair. As they say, the rest was history.

From there, Pidgeon spread news around town of the services, and more stars would show up to the station looking for what Bowers called his "sexual matchmaking." To keep up with the demand, according to THR, he soon employed a steady network of male and female sex workers. And as shown in Hollywood, there was in fact a trailer located on the property as an option for clients.

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“My operation—if you want to call it that—was not a prostitution ring,” Bowers wrote in his book, according to The New York Times. “I was simply providing a service to those who wanted it and, as recorded history has shown, throughout the ages there has always been a need for good, old-fashioned, high-quality sex.”

He worked the gas station until 1950, and then became a handyman and bartender for-hire at Hollywood's most exclusive events. This allowed him to develop more up-close-and-personal relationships with celebrities, earning their trust for services that were very much a secret at the time. However, Bowers says that his work ended in the 1980s during the height of the AIDS epidemic. In his books he wrote, "It was too unsafe a game to play anymore.”

So which celebrities did Bowers reportedly... service?

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In addition to arranging liaisons for Rock Hudson—who lived as a closeted gay man until he died of AIDS in 1985—Bowers claims to have both slept with and arranged hook-ups with the era's biggest names.

He alleges that his clients included Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Cole Porter, Vivien Leigh, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Bette Davis, and Katherine Hepburn—for whom he said he arranged more-than 100 trysts with women. So what does Bowers think of airing these late-celebs' history?

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“I’ve kept silent all these years because I didn’t want to hurt any of these people,” Bowers told The New York Timesin 2012. “And I never saw the fascination. So they liked sex how they liked it. Who cares?”

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